I have a new 3/4-acre pond that I stocked in March and April with 15 pounds of fatheads and 5 pounds of golden shiners. I also put in 100 2- to 4-inch redear and 50 4- to 6-inch redear. The redear started nesting in early May on a long, shallow gravel bar that I built last winter. They are still nesting. The cove with the gravel bar is just bursting with minnows, which I assume are a combination of redear, fatheads and golden shiners.
The main part of the lake also has clouds of minnows, everywhere I look. Tiny fatheads school up right next to the bank, and bigger minnows gang up on chow farther out. If the sunlight is just right, I can see thousands and thousands of tiny fish that look as if they are suspended right in the water's surface film.
I thought the number of fish in the part of the lake I can reach from the bank was just amazing. Then, this past weekend, I dragged a canoe down to the water and paddled for the first time into the other, bigger cove, which I can't easily reach from the bank and so had ignored all spring.
Wow! Imagine a quarter-acre of flooded cedar trees standing in from 1 to 6 feet of water, with a channel down the middle of them. The entire cove was just alive with minnows, flashing in the sunlight. Iridescent streams of minnows, pouring through the flooded cedar branches. Unbelievable. It hasn't even been three months since I put in the first fatheads, and the pond is already swarming with them.
It is so cool watching all this happen. I can hardly wait for fall, when I can add a few SMB and YP to the mix.
